The weekly messenger. [volume] (St. Martinsville [i.e. St. Martinville] La.) 1886-1948, 1887-12-31
LELAND STANFORD,s GIFT.
dow He Proposes to Help the Edu-
cation Of Poor Boys.
IGath in the Cincinnati Enquirer

(Gath in the Cincinnati Enquirer.l
Gov. Stanford's gift is said in round
numbers to amount to $40, 900, OF
which not less than 100000 is the
present value, and the 500, 900, 900 seems
10 be almost within the grasp of his own
generation. He has given to it $500
Icres of land not excelled in this State,
md probably in the world, for fertility
md development in the near future.
There are about 5, 500 acres right around
the new college building; the largest
tract is at the Governors great yine-
yard, where there are nearly 1900 acres
Of bearing vines. In another tract there
Ire 5000 acres. You can imagine what
Ibis vineyard ought to do from the fact
mat right at the university is q small
vineyard of forty acres, from which the
Governor has received as high as 81, 2000
year for the grapes alone, and never
less than 5000.
Much of the land within O few miles
Of the university now brings 1000 per
covered with orchards or vineyards, but
most of these are only from three years
old to twelve years old; and saw one
piece Of ground of ten or twelve acres
over which there is lawsuit between
two fruit-pickers, one Of whom pays
$4,000 year to pick the fruit alone and
the other, thinking himself swindled Of
not getting the fruit to pick, has
brought the suit.
This land, however, even with orch
ards and vineyards upon it, would seem
to be a prospective and speculative
dover to college if it were not for the
fact that the building, which 1 person
ally walked over and took in with my
eye, is in size almost unexampled in
the history of college building. The
house now going up, which is expected
10 be dedicated and occupied next year
at the time the son of Mr.. Stanford
would have been a man at his majority
had he lived, is 500 feet long by 200
feet wide. This is the size Of the quad
rangle merely and the cloister or COW
ored walk. Around the inside of this
square is 100 feet in length. The
Capitol ut Washington is, / think, a
little longer than the first block of this
Stanford University. II there be people
ready to Jump at the conclusion that so
much building indicates q lavish expen-
diture and future extravaganza in keep
ing it up, 1 would arrest their wisdom
by the remark that this great quadran-
gle is only one story high, and is con-
-ceived in breadth, but not in loftiness,
and with due reference to the future
indeed with more reference to a hun
dred years hence than to the present
day. The man who resolved to conclude
his career and lay his ashes in this in
stitution has been wide awake all his
life, and has avoided notoriety and loud
ness, and with oil his success has been
perhaps the most modest man in Cali
fornia. Although Protestant, and in
all his feelings an American of the old
New England and New York stock, he
has regarded the old mission-houses Of
the Spanish Jesuits in California with a
practical eye, and they were recon-
mended to him for their GOODNESS, their
stability against storms and earthquakes,
and, on the whole, their picturesque
ness and consonance with landscape
which often reveals to the mind the
similar structures of the Spanish in tha
land Of the Moors about old Granada.